Sunday, March 30, 2014

This past
week I was struck by an attack of dyeing frenzy. Two weeks ago, when I had been
at the fair in Oberstdorf, I had realized I could use some stocking up on
darker colours.

As I had to dye the March selection for the fabric club anyway, I just
continued on.

Basically I spent a lot of time in the basement, moving fabrics
in the dye bath, or going up and down to check on the washing machine and
dryer, which were taking their turns, or at the rotary iron.

And
probably because the March selection was six different shades of gray, ‘non
colors’ be academic definitions, I was struck by this attack. I kept coming up
with new ideas, which I wanted to try out.

I did end
up with some dark shades. But several other shades as well, that are not really
that dark. I even had to resort to my smaller buckets, which I don't usually use any more as they are too small for the pieces that I normally dye.

Only part of the results of last week's work

Until I
ended up without any fabric left that could be dyed... Now I have to wait for
the next shipment in the beginning of May.

Meanwhile,
I went to another fair with a stall today, that was much more successful than
Oberstdorf had been.

And upon my return home I left everything in the car tonight, as I am leaving
for Prague Patchwork Meeting on Wednesday.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

When I set
up my visit to the Textiles in Art exhibition in Bielefeld in January, my
husband had suggested that I take a round trip, continue from Bielefeld to
Wolfsburg, and also visit the exhibition “Kunst und Textil” (Art and textiles)
there. The two had been been reviewed together in an article in the newspaper,
as they had opened at about the same time and had very similar runs. However,
doing them both one after the other in January wasn’t possible, as my son was
traveling with me and we had to get back for school after the Christmas
holidays. And I had already resigned myself to not being able to see the
exhibition in Wolfsburg.
But then I found out that this exhibition would be shown at a second venue, the
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, starting on March 21. Now that’s a shorter distance
from where we live, in a direction where I am much more oriented – and I soon
found a way how to combine a visit with other commitments.

This
weekend I am teaching IQ for the Nürtingen quilt group. I had already made
plans to combine this trip with picking up my quilts at Freiburg
after the conclusion of my exhibition there. And Nürtingen is close to Stuttgart. A bit of
rearranging the travel arrangements – the exhibition had to be done before the
workshop, as the museum would be closed on Monday, so I would also pick up my
quilts in Freiburg before teaching instead of after.

Thursday I
drove to Freiburg – with a lengthy bit of traffic jam that I circumvented
partly through remainders of local knowledge from when I grew up in the area of
Karlsruhe. But
traffic jams aren’t only annoying, they also give you opportunities for
interesting photo shots.

Taking down
an exhibition is always much faster than putting it up.

Spent the
night with friends up in the Black Forest, and then on to Stuttgart. (No – my carbon footprint these
days has not been exemplary at all. In my defense I can say, though, that I was
smart enough to hop onto the S-Bahn from Stuttgart
from Böblingen, my evening destination, which saved me the stress of driving in
the city, finding expensive parking, and, most importantly, driving back there
in Friday afternoon traffic.)

Of course, no photography allowed in the
exhibition, and because I already have so many others I had decided in advance
that I did not want to buy the catalogue, although the exhibition was very good
and interesting. There were so many guards in attendance that I decided to be really good girl and not take any illegal photographs. A few overlaps occurred with the exhibition in Bielefeld in terms of
names of artists on display, but obviously this would mean other works by the
same artists. The exhibit in Stuttgart puts slightly less emphasis on the
Bauhaus-effect in textile art than the exhibit in Bielefeld did - it mentions
only Anni Albers from amongst the Bauhaus women, with more emphasis on her
works after her emigration to the US and her influence on ‘fiber art’ as such.
Pieces of Raphia fabrics from Kongo or a large piece of Tapa fabric made from
bark fibre from the Fidji islands show interesting correspondences to modern
day design as it is familiar to us today, a felt cape from an Anatolian(?)
shepherd, a tribal belt or necklace with tied knots and a divan cover from
Bauhaus and are juxtaposed with works by Birgit Dieker, Ghada Amer, Brice Marden,
Mike Kelly, Joseph Beuys, as is another Mappa by Alieghiero e Boetti from the
1970s with two small hooked rugs from Afghanistan in the best tradition – with
military helicopters and war machinery as their ornaments. That certainly gave
me the creeps.

My absolute
favorite piece in the whole exhibition was Lenore Tawney’s piece. (Lots of pictures of her works here and here.)

This must be the one I really liked - picture from the web.

The
audio-guide did not really live up to my expectations for a its cost of 5
euros, in fact, I consider that a complete rip-off. Though it was fun to listen
to a few of the pieces in the children’s tour, which I did when no ‘adult’
number was listed. If I hadn’t wasted this amount I might have relented and
bought myself the catalogue after all…

Definitely
a must-go for anybody who is interested in textile art and gets to go to Stuttgart in the next few
weeks!